


Solutions

by orphan_account



Category: Discworld - Pratchett
Genre: 5 Things, Dark, Multi, over 1000 words
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-03-27
Updated: 2008-03-27
Packaged: 2017-10-04 07:08:56
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,018
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27372
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Five things that Havelock Vetinari never did to Samuel Vimes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Solutions

_Prologue_

Havelock Vetinari had a problem and, as always, many ways of solving it. He'd been procrastinating, this time: prolonging the decision. This sentimental procrastination was part of the problem.

The failure of a perfect system was always down to a human error. The Patrician was a system which strived for perfection; humanity had no business creeping in. Yet this was just the case.

Some human weaknesses were manageable – while he'd never learned to throw away things of value, however dangerous, he would, if necessary, delegate the decision to someone who could – or lock the problem away, to be monitored constantly. The gonne had been a former case; Leonard of Quirm was a latter case. Leonard posed infinite threat, but none, as of yet, to Vetinari.

But lately Vetinari had discovered a new weakness, and this one simply wouldn't do at all. He found himself, to his great chagrin, lost in romantic daydreams. About Samuel Vimes.

Vetinari played with a lot of pieces – people – but most of them didn't occupy him like Samuel Vimes did. His motives and reactions worked like clockwork, but somehow produced a creature capable of overruling his own feelings – with his own feelings – anger controlled by anger, compassion reigned in with compassion, and pride and shame, circling each other, curdling disappointment into infinite despair.

There were so many things Vetinari could do with Vimes. So many thing he wanted to do to him.

He had to make a decision.

  
_1._

Yes... Yes, this was a possibility too.

Candlelight and shadows distorted the Commander's face, but Vetinari could still read that expression, contorted and concentrated. Vimes opened his eyes and looked at him for a second or two. The expression was animal, and very Vimes. Even now he was trying to figure Vetinari out, trying to see if he should flee or attack. There didn't seem to be any alternative there. Vetinari gave another tug, another swivel with his thumb, and those eyes closed again, the head jerked, a groan worked its way out of the man's throat. Large hands with dirty fingernails found their way at the back of the Patrician's head, and then he was kissed, hard. So that was Vimes's decision, then: retaliation.

There was a warmth in his belly, a dangerous, nonsensical feeling. Vimes fumbled at his robes, and he knew he wouldn't have turned him away even if that had made more sense, not any more. And that was a terrible thing to realise.

  
_2._

"That will be all, Commander."

Vimes hesitated. "Sir." He got out of the seat, feeling like a fool, so suddenly addressed in military terms, when the taste of tea still lingered in his mouth. An hour's worth of a very strange discussion over tea and biscuits, of all things, and suddenly he was "commander" again.

"May I ask a question, sir?" he added, slowly falling back into a guard's rigid stance.

"What is it, Vimes?"

"Why would you tell me all that, sir? About the Uberwald plans? And about... your schooling? Sir."

"Oh, I suppose I needed to vent." Vetinari smiled thinly.

The comment made even less sense to Vimes. Vetinari? Venting? He'll be claiming to be flesh and blood next.

"Oh, do run along. I still have a meeting with Dr Downey tonight."

Vimes saluted and retreated, while Vetinari sat at his desk and shuffled some papers, for the look of the thing. He put them down as the footsteps receded, and sank into thought.

Half an hour later Dr Downey arrived, carrying a small chest. He didn't sit down, but stood with the chest at Vetinari's table, sliding his fingertips along the golden snakes on the lid, a worried little smile on his face. "This isn't the usual way to do things, my lord," he said.

"Oh? I thought this sort of thing was quite usual. Or has there been an unforeseen lack of demand for your Guild's services?" Vetinari knew very well there wasn't.

"That wasn't exactly what I meant," continued Dr. Downey. "But the Patrician..."

"I was fully trained." Vetinari unfolded his fingers, absolutely calm. "I am an assassin."

"Quite." Dr Downey pushed the chest across the table. "The fee was collected from a number of contributors, my lord. Would you like to see the list of names?"

"No need, doctor." He already knew. He was on that list.

He would be there at the funeral. He could see it now, as it would surely play out. High Priest Ridcully would work in a comment about the dangers of heavy drinking (outside proper rituals or celebrations in the name of Io) in his sermon. Sybil Ramkin Vimes would be a mountain in black, and the guards would line the walls and the seats; and there'd be a grave in the Cemetery of Small Gods that would go to some other guard, because a Duke couldn't be buried in a coppers' graveyard. Honour and insult wrapped in one example, much as a highly paid assassination.

Perhaps he'd donate some of the money to the Watch's Widows and Orphans Fund.

  
_3._

Someone had already tried this, and it hadn't worked, but that someone had not been Havelock Vetinari.

Of course he had to take into account that Vimes knew him very well, and could recognise most tricks and tests and wouldn't leap through hoops unless they were cleverly disguised as doorways to a solution – and not necessarily even then. Vimes was a suspicious bastard. That was what made him so indispensable. But even suspicious bastards had some automatic reactions they couldn't easily thwart.

It had taken some time to arrange. His pawns: a cop-killing vampire, the usual vampire intelligence culled by years of drinking infected blood; one screw loosened and re-screwed in a specific crossbow; Lord Rust; Soul Cake Tuesday dinner party; one invitation left at a certain table at Biers, with a note on the back; a word here and there, and it worked like clockwork. Samuel Vimes worked like clockwork. Sybil's blood splattered the duck and sprinkled droplets like flowers on Lord Rust's jacket.

The Times said the Commander had been aiming at a dangerous criminal. The other papers said different things: drink had driven him to it, the job had driven him crazy, a rogue since he was promoted, a street rat in fancy clothes, a disgrace, murderer.

The watch was temporarily given the Captain Carrot. The temporary exchange stretched to weeks, then months. Samuel Vimes barely left the house. New rumours started as old ones began to loose flavour. "He never works, he never sleeps," said the maid. "I found him holding little Sam one morning at 6 am. He was crying, a grown man. I was afraid for the child, so I took him away. You should've seen the look in his eye. I thought he would murder me. But then he just seemed to crumble. It was that day that I first saw him take a drink."

In the palace, in one man's black heart, a weight was lifted.

  
_4._

Usually, the Patrician's day would be full to the brim. The moments that were not for work, were for thinking, which was also work. This was what had been disturbed by humanity, the simple pleasure of action in every moment.

For once, a problem was inside the Patrician, rather than outside. Vexing as it was, this meant he would have to take a moment every day to work on himself. This had not occurred for decades.

He chose late night, before retiring for a few hours sleep, in his own room, when no-one usually dared to bother him.

He would stand in his room, still as a snake, and close his eyes. He would close out thought. He would close out feeling.

He would conjure up one commandment, one rule, into his mind, and tell himself: this is the truth.

You don't want him. You're not interested in him. He is useful. He is removed from you. He is outside of you. He is a face. He is a collection of reactions. He is not a person. He is not Wuffles. He's a man, evil to the core like the rest of us. Stubbornly refusing the evil does not make him different. He is just another anomaly. He is just another toy.

It took him a month before he began to believe it.

  
_5._

There had been no official announcement as to who would become the next Patrician. It was unheard of in the city's history to have a change of Patrician without the actual death of the previous Patrician happening either before or directly after the installment of the new. There were two prime candidates: Lord Rust, who was himself convinced of having earned the job, and Captain Carrot, who everybody knew the city really belonged to. The latter rumour had gained more power as word got out Vetinari had seen Captain Carrot in a long, private conference.

Samuel Vimes wasn't sure which way the decision would fall. He doubted Vetinari would give the city to an idiot like Lord Rust – then again, it was sometimes difficult to tell what the Patrician would do, or what political fluctuations would force him to do. Whatever happened it was hard to imagine Vetinari not being on top of a situation he'd instigated himself.

It was also hard to imagine Vetinari as a private citizen. What would he do? Train cockroaches to play the violin? Convince stars to form new patterns for his delight? Vimes stared at the purposefully annoying clock on the wall of the waiting room and concentrated on not being annoyed by it.

It seemed difficult to think of coming to this office, knowing someone else was waiting behind that door.

Rufus Drumknott hurried out of the room. "You can go in now, Sir Samuel," he said and bowed to him as he sat down at his desk. There was a touch of expectance and amusement in his smile. It raised Vimes's hackles.

If it hadn't been so completely unlike the man, Vimes would have sworn he saw the same amusement in Vetinari's smile as the Patrician offered him a chair.

"Just one thing before you take a look at this," the Patrician said as he stamped his seal on a long document before him on the desk and handed it to him. "About Captain Carrot."

"Yes, sir?" Vimes glanced at the paper – it was the official documentation of the transfer of Patricianship – and then back at Vetinari.

"I didn't think it advisable to mention him officially in the document, for legal purposes, but I expect you to appoint him your second in command and the commander of the watch. I know I don't need to tell you how indispensable he is. A fine young man, Commander, but not, as you might put it, a suspicious bastard." And there, glittering unmistakably at the corner of the Patrician's eye, was amusement.

A horrible thought occurred to Vimes. His eyes shot back to the document, and bulged.

"I can't say you'll do better than I did," continued the Patrician, "but you'll do as well as can be expected, I'm sure. Now, I hope you haven't any plans for the afternoon. We have many things to discuss."

Vetinari had half expected Vimes to refuse, and so had made sure to mention several times that the alternative was Lord Rust. Vetinari was good at this sort of thing. By the evening the Commander had been swept in and won.

In fact he was not at all sure Vimes, even with Carrot Ironfoundersson at his side, was quite prepared for the challenge of Ankh-Morpork. But he would learn, and he wouldn't be broken by it. It was, after all, his first love. As it had been Vetinari's.

There was something decidedly perverse about this marriage, especially as it was degreed and conducted by Vetinari. Yet it was absolutely satisfying. There could not have been a more extreme solution, for him.

He stood by the window in his chamber that night, looking over the lights of the city, and felt wiped blank.


End file.
